Design of Optimal Sound Absorbers Using Acoustic Diffusers for Multipurpose Auditoriums

The main goal of this research was to design and study the best structure, location, and shape of acoustic diffusers to be fitted on the ceilings of multipurpose auditoriums. Their absorbing properties can enhance the acoustics when installed on high ceilings, and behind suspended reflecting panels, by mitigating or nullifying specular reflections that could overcome the panels and, thus, avoiding time delay gaps exceeding 30–40 ms compared with the direct sound. For this purpose, a typical medium-sized room, with inclined floors, a stage, and 20 rows of seats, was considered. The allocation and height of the considered diffusers were based on the Schroeder quadratic residue sequence, and they were modeled as rectangles, wedges, cylinders, and Y-shaped elements. A standardized speech source spectrum was analyzed for up to five different receiver locations. In this way, the attenuation parameter as a function of frequency was evaluated and compared between the candidate diffusers in order to identify the best absorber. The simulations were undertaken with a software tool previously validated by the authors called PARDOS, which incorporates an innovative formulation based on the uniform theory of diffraction (UTD) to analyze multiple diffractions and reflections of acoustic waves. The results show that the new Y-shaped diffusers proposed, tuned for the hearing frequency band from 250 Hz up to 10,000 Hz, attained the best acoustic performance in terms of absorption.